The invention pertains to advertising. More particularly, the invention pertains to targeted advertising using multiple presentation streams, such as in television programming delivery systems.
Traditionally, whether the television programming service is being provided by antenna broadcast, analog cable, digital cable, Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS), Switched Digital Video (SDV) or any other means, generally all viewers of a particular program see the same ads in the same order at the same times. In essence, each advertisement is “linked” to a particular point within a particular program. If the particular viewer is not viewing the particular program at the particular time, he or she will not see the linked advertisement. In such linked advertising, the advertisements are simply part of the data stream from the head end, i.e., from the central office of the television service provider, to all subscribers of that service.
However, with modern digital television service systems, such as digital cable systems, DBS systems, and SDV systems (in which television service is received over the telephone lines, e.g., via Very high speed Digital Subscriber Line, VDSL), more personalized television service is possible. For instance, in DBS and SDV systems, individual subscriber households can be selectively addressed though STBs. In digital cable systems, a group of subscriber households can be selectively addressed through a cable node serving that group. For this reason, STBs and cable nodes may be referred to herein as addressable units.
In other words, through addressable units, the service provider can send different data to different subscribers or groups of subscribers. For instance, in telephone based systems such as SDV, the service provider can send different information to any individual subscriber through the subscriber's STB. In digital cable systems, different data can be sent to different groups of subscribers through cable nodes wherein each cable node may serve several hundred subscriber households. In addition, two-way communication between the subscriber's set top box and the service provider via the network is possible, e.g., using a Data Over Cable System Interface Spec (DOCSIS) compliant modem to provide return path communications.
The selective addressability of these modern digital television service systems renders more targeted TV advertising possible. In accordance with one targeted TV advertising method, ads that have been prepared to interest a particular subscriber of the television service network may be inserted into ad insertion spots or “avails” of the television programming stream at the particular subscriber's device (e.g., a set top box or STB). As a result, different subscribers of the same television program may view different advertisements that are particularly directed to them. PCT Patent Publication No. WO 99/66719 entitled “Techniques for Intelligent Video Ad Insertion,” which is herein incorporated by reference, discloses at least one such scheme. Other such schemes are discussed in aforementioned Provisional Patent Application No. 60/229,156, owned by the same assignee of the present invention.
Although these systems provide effective means to deliver targeted ads to the subscribers, in some applications, it may be desirable to have targeted ads deliver to the subscribers without the ad insertion occurring at the subscriber's STB.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a system and method for delivering targeted advertising via a network, such as a television service network, using selective multiple presentation streams.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a system and method for delivering targeted TV advertising without ad insertion occurring at the subscriber's device.
It is still a further object of the present invention to provide a system and method for addressing targeted advertisements at a cable node level.